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The Second 'Iron Lady'

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- A woman trained in chemistry rises from out of nowhere, takes control of a conservative party, leads it to victory and stamps her authority on the world.

Think you buried her last week? That's the biography of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Despite austerity, despite losing state election after state election, despite constant crises in which southern Europeans shouted "Nazi" at her, Merkel's Christian Democratic Union looks set to sweep September's national elections and return to power, perhaps with a stronger majority, according to Reuters.

What Americans need to know, now, is Germany is headed toward an historic confrontation with the United Kingdom in which we're on the UK's side. The issue dividing the two countries is the role of tax havens, as I wrote about last November, the British protectorates that are making corporations and rich individuals more powerful than any government.

If you're for the rule of law, you need to be against the tax havens. Merkel is. She made that crystal clear in ending the Cyprus crisis with a deal that seizes big accounts, ending that country's tax haven status and bringing the banking system there thoroughly under European Union control.

That's what is behind the dispute going on behind the scenes between Merkel and UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

At the Centre for European Reform, Charles Grant writes that Germany is keen to change just a few articles in EU treaties, creating a European version of our Federal Reserve and sinking funds like those Alexander Hamilton used to retire America's Revolutionary War debts.

In other words, Merkel's model for change is our economic model, an independent central bank enforcing rules on member states through monetary policy.

But she also wants to go further and eliminate incentives that now drive the use of tax havens.